Customer Reviews

CC CWF WiFi Internet Radio

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I bought this radio despite reviews complaining of its reliability. It worked right out of the box and offers, for the price, far more presettable stations than its nearest competitor, a remote and an ethernet connection in addition to its wireless feature. It is also one of the smallest of the table top sets and will sit neatly in a little corner without drawing attention to itself - an appealing feature to those listeners for whom appearance places a far second to content. I found its setup well thought out and mostly intuitive. The front panel offers only three pre-sets so do not lose the remote which replicates all radio controls and has a 100 pre-set capacity. The loudspeaker offers better than average fidelity of table top models.

This radio operates using the reciva internet radio website, which the Grace radio also uses. Registering the radio with that site allows the listener to select using reciva those stations of particular and recurrent interest and save their locations in the actual radio. These stations can then be accessed from a menu labelled MY STATIONS on the radio - a very nice convenience. Of course wifi radio is only as good as your wireless connection and the streaming rate of the actual service providing the signal. In addition, if your wireless network is in use by several computers or other devices while you are using this radio you may experience bits of silence at times - especially noted with broadcasts from foreign stations that are otherwise flawless. Most, but not all, American radio stations use servers providing reliable output to the internet, as do the government supported stations of Europe, Russia, China and Japan. However, if your cup of tea is Upper Volta or the Falkland Islands for example, well, the sometimes large gaps in the sound are not the fault of this radio. Having more than a casual interest in world news and having listened to shortwave broadcasts for many years, I have found that wifi radio offers far, far more foreign stations than shortwave these days without requiring a subscription fee (except, of course, the cost of your internet connection) and seems to be largely replacing shortwave broadcasts to the very well developed world. I found this radio an affordable and, so far, easy to use, trouble-free way of listening to what inhabitants of other parts of earth have to say about themselves and us, without a fade any time of day.

I had this up and running in about 5 minutes, very nice to set up, the sound quality through external speakers is very good, the built in speaker is just OK. Having access to all the stations is great and physically, it is very small which is good for a night stand.

However, it seems to have some firmware issues with staying connected. About every 2 days it looses all its connections and cannot reconnect without being unplugged and plugged back in. Apparently, it's not able to reset itself once the connection is lost. I'm not sure if it's the WiFi or Receiva site that's the issue, it always looses all the connections at once and new ones cannot be made. Power cycling always resets it immediately though.

The display is not very useful as a nighttime clock unfortunately. It always shows 2 lines, so the clock display is quite small, and once you set the backlight down to sleeping levels, it is very hard to read. They should have a single line all clock display with reversed lighted numbers on dark background, but don't.

The C Crane tech support is pretty much worthless as well.

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Update a year later - Only deserves 2 stars after firmware update:

The latest firmware update has made it a very unreliable alarm clock.

Same issues with connectivity dropping out, but now with the latest firmware update by going to the Network menu and telling it to rescan, it reconnects without power cycling. It still can't do this operation itself, you have to do it manually each time.

The real killer though is that whereas before, if it couldn't get a WiFi connection for the alarm function it would go to the beep alarm, now it just does nothing, so the alarm doesn't work. This is VERY BAD.

Bottom line is that it's not a bad WiFi radio, but because of the useless clock display and unreliable alarm functions it's not usable as an alarm clock.

It looks like we are supposed to believe that C.Crane has designed this for the American Market.
On their website it states:

"Well, we couldn't let the Europeans and Brits have all the glory, so we've built a WiFi radio of our own."

The problem is, it doesn't look like they designed this radio or built it. It seems they are taking a radio they are buying from someone else and sticking their name (and a $100 premium) on it.

If you go to Amazon's German site and search for IPdio mini Internetradio, you will find the exact same radio for 85 euros (about $100).

So what are American's paying twice as much for, the brand name C.Crane stuck on the radio?

BTW, in Germany the same company sells the C.Crane radio and the Grace radio. They sell the Grace radio for more money and position the C.Crane one as their cheaper "Mini" radio.

I have had a trio of wi-fi radios, and this is by far, the flimsiest device of the three. I don't mind plastic radios, but I never knew that plastic could be produced this thin. To say that the tuning knob has the feel of a Fisher-Price toy radio, is to besmirch a perfectly good toy maker. The sound from the speaker is equally thin, and the software doesn't allow for use with Pandora nor with MP3 tunes music locker. For the same price, the Grace wifi radio blows this away in both build quality and sound reproduction. On the plus side, I DO like the look of the radio, and set-up and implementation couldn't have been easier. I have used many a fine CCrane product over the years, really like the and support the company, and was hoping to be able to recommend this device, but unfortunately, cannot.

I've had the CC Wifi Internet Radio for two weeks now. I had no problems setting it up with my Wireless network and it works quite well although it lacks an external Wifi antenna.

It uses the Reciva database of radio stations (over 14,000 radio stations claimed)(www.reciva.com). Although using the single knob to scroll through lots of radio stations. They are organized by location or genre and its fun to search the world for interesting stations.

Using your reciva.com account you can set up your favorite stations which show up on your radio (after you have registered it) under "My Stations". You can also add other streams under "My Streams".

This radio is nice and compact and light (constructed of plastic). The display is only two lines which means you have to do a lot of scrolling through menus sometimes.

It comes with a remote which is handy if you want to access more than 3 stations (up to 99 with the remote) you can store on 3 buttons on the front. These stations are stored locally rather than under your reciva account under "My Stations".

It also will stream audio in various formats (MP3, Windows Media, Real, iTunes (non-protected), Ogg Vorbis and also with the new firmware FLAC files) from your PC or PnP device such as many Networked Attached Storage devices. In fact it works great with my Netgear ReadyNAS where I have all my music stored.

I looked at the number of Internet/Wifi Radios and chose this one over the others because of two things: its small size and fact that it also has a wired Ethernet port as well as Wifi connectivity.

Only issues are that it sometimes loses the Wifi connection (not an issue with a wired Ethernet connection) and some stations take more than a few seconds to buffer before you can listen to them.

The WiFi Internet Radio by C.Crane is a good tabletop clock radio. It is easy to set up (if you can connect your computer to your wireless network, then this is a snap). It seamlessly integrates with the Reciva website making selection of your favorite Internet music easy to do. Its small footprint makes it a good substitute for existing clock radios. The sound is not HiFi, but better than most clock radios.

Some have complained about dropped connections to their network. But that is due to the quality and signal strength of their connection - not the fault of the radio itself. If your computer cannot hold a radio station then this Internet Radio will not be able to do so either.

The good: 99 presets, fairly easy to navigate, reasonably loud clear audio. Small tabletop footprint. Easy to set up. Integrates with Reciva website.

The bad: Time not visible while in use. Only 3 front panel presets. Cannot easily scan presets. No bass or treble control.
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After owning this radio for 6 months, I have additional comments:

It is an awful clock radio. After the alarm goes off, the clock (time) is no longer displayed. Instead, it displays "Real Enabled". I have to turn off the radio to see the time.

The alarm radio ceased to function after the station changed its URL. I reprogrammed the updated URL into push button #1, yet the radio insisted on waking me up to an alarm rather than the radio. I tried everything, then contacted CC Crane and never got a response. I finally found out that the clock radio would work fine from a MP3 source, but not WMA, despite the fact that it worked before with a WMA signal.

The only reason to purchase this radio over some of the others is because of its compact size.

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Now, after owning this wireless Internet radio for a year, the wireless function has stopped working. For nearly $200, I was expecting this to last longer than a year.

It turns out that CC Crane offers a year warranty through their website, but only 3 months if purchased through Amazon. Plus, as of January 2010, it is much cheaper on the CC Crane website.

Amazon will not let me change the star rating of this review, but now I rate it as a "Do Not Buy!"

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When I sent my radio into CC Crane for repair, I included a short letter respectfully asking if they would honor their 1-year warranty even though I purchased this through Amazon. Amazingly, my radio was repaired and they returned my check.

I just purchased a CCrane Wi-Fi radio. It's a neat little product for the money. However, it has a BIG problem - the radio turns itself on spontaneously. When I called CCrane this afternoon, I was told that it was a router problem. I disagree. Like millions of others, I have a very common Linksys 802.11g router. If the radio can't work with it, the problem lies with the radio, not the router.

C Crane could not tell me which routers their radio will work with, nor do they have plans for a firmware update to correct the problem, according to the representative I spoke with.

If I had it to do over, I'd buy a radio from a different maker.

I just received this internet radio and can provide an initial impression.

The first surprise was the size and weight. I thought the box from Amazon had to be empty when I picked it up, perhaps I had ordered the wrong item. Not so. This is definitely the smallest bedside radio I have ever had. Check the measurements if this is an issue.

This replaced a Sangean WR-2 which I had about a year, and which I loved. It had heft and very good sound. It was the traditional FM beside radio. Unfortunately, in the mountains here there isn't much radio selection and what you can get comes in poorly for some of the year. Internet access to radio has changed the universe, which is why I decided to get this radio. Also, I have a great fear that public radio is going to decline as government support for it declines, and access to music and programs I enjoy is going to be a real problem. With this internet radio, I can access any station in the world and change it if I don't like the current program.

Setting up the radio was an absolute breeze. It locked on to my wireless router immediately. Finding my current NPR stations was also incredibly simple. The Receiva list is displayed, and you simply dial through the stations until you find what you want. I haven't tried the genre mode.

Configuring everything utilizes the dial, which makes it unbelievably easy. One complaint about the Sangean was all of the buttons. Setting the alarm was like programming a PDP-8 using panel switches in the old days. With this radio, I can actually set the alarm like analog clock radios used to, yet even simpler.

One complaint is that the time is only displayed when the radio is off. I like to see the time while I am listening to the radio, so this is a bit annoying.

The sound quality is not outstanding, but certainly usable. I don't expect much from a bedside radio, and use a pillow speaker most of the time anyway.

The size and plastic case put me off initially, but I decided it is not a problem. An alternative would be the Grace, which seems to have a footprint about like the Sangean. However, my wife loves the small footprint and the fact that I don't need an external antenna. She did not like the larger radio on the bedside table.

The reason I chose this radio over the Grace initially was that I liked the Ethernet connection in case that was needed. So far, I don't think it will be needed.

The performance of this radio is fantastic; I just wish it were in a metal case, with a bigger speaker. But I'll keep it.

Wifi Radio opens up a wonderful dimension where we can get radios stations that we cannot receive over the air due to distance. The only issue holding it back is the actual stations. If you want BBC or NPR, no problem. But id you want an AM station to listen to a particular broadcast of a local high school football game as I had hoped, you will be disappointed.
Hope the variety of stations expands, then it will be worth it.

When you first start it, it cycles through setting up for about fifteen minutes. Once it connects, it will work at times and then the processing just hangs up. You will press a button and it may take fifteen to twenty seconds to process the command. This makes it very difficult to search for a station when you have to key in the station to search for. I would try to change stations on the presets and the processing was taking so long it would change the current station to the one I selected to change to.

Today I called in a got a RMA to send it back. I have already sent the first one back for a replacement. C.Crane didn't even make an attempt to satisfy me, they just gave me the RMA and told me to have a good day. They didn't want to discuss the radio. Since I tried two of them and got the same results I consider it a very bad radio.